


what the water gave me

by orphan_account



Category: Black Widow (Comics), Marvel (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Young Avengers
Genre: Alternate Universe - Shipwrecked, Hallucinations, Multi, Survival
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-08
Updated: 2015-03-24
Packaged: 2018-03-16 21:07:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3502787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shipwrecked and injured, Natasha must rely on a former target to keep her alive. But strange things are happening to her mind, and taming the Pacific Ocean may be the hardest mission she's ever undertaken. Back on land, her fellow Avengers seek a way to bring her home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Immersion

. I: Prologue .

 

Death tastes like salt.

 

In the past, it’s tasted like blood and ice and – once – like Sauvignon Blanc. She’s had enough near-death experiences to know what happens: the world is suddenly soundless and her limbs become numb and jumbled, like they’ve detached themselves at the joints. The only thing she’s ever acutely aware of is _taste_. The ringing in her ears is too much and the light is too bright, so she focuses on the taste.

 

This time, death tastes like salt.

 

She licks her lips and lets the water take her.

 

.

.

.

* * *

 

. II: Immersion .

 

 

Under the waves, she meets God.

 

It’s funny; he doesn’t look the way she pictured him. As a little girl, he was the size of a mountain, a great roaring beast with fire at his fingertips. He had eyes made of ice and muscles like iron bridges, stitched across the world and over all the planets. As a child, he was the only thing she thought she feared.

 

Yet here, underneath the brine of the Pacific, he’s actually … petite. She can’t look directly at him; every time she does, the image blurs and brightens, like a faulty camera lens. But she thinks she can make out side-swept hair and dark, dark skin. Glasses over a soft nose. A crisp button-down t-shirt? Jeans.

 

His voice is the sweetest thing she’s ever heard.

 

“Are you trying to die?” God asks. His legs are crossed. He sits atop a grizzled rock, watching her struggle to breathe.

 

“No,” she replies. She’s telling the truth.

 

“Have you given up?”

 

“No.”

 

He nods. “Good.”

 

“I’m tired.”

 

“You have strength, Natasha.”

 

“That’s what _uchitel_ used to say.”

 

“Did _uchitel_ teach you how to swim? You’re doing well, by the way.”

 

“Why are you asking questions you already know the answers to?”

 

God laughs at this – a soft, congenial laugh. “Because I want you to hear yourself speak, _volchitsa_.”

 

Nat starts at this name – “volchitsa.” That was her nickname back in training. Volchitsa is “she-wolf” in Russian. God has called her a _she-wolf_. But there is no malice or condemnation in his expression, as he rises from the rock to walk beside her.

 

It is a strange juxtaposition – Natasha swimming, her limbs floating in suspension, and God walking beside her as if the laws of physics mean absolutely nothing.

 

“You haven’t been home in a year,” God says, surveying the ocean around them. There’s not much of a view – just a few schools of krill and a large expanse of grey-green coral – but Natasha imagines God sees quite a bit more than she does.

 

“Depends what you mean by home,” she replies.

 

“You know what I mean by home.”

 

“I’ve been busy.”

 

“You have been guilt-ridden.”

 

 “I lost a _child_.”

 

“By no fault of your own.”

 

“Then whose fault is it?” Natasha tries to look at God, but he blinks at her direct gaze like a penny in the sun. “I want justice.”

 

“Knock, and the door will be opened for you.”

 

Natasha opens her mouth to object to this, to question why everything must be spoken in a riddle, why every act of faith must be made in the dark. She has a million questions for this God in Glasses – like why she grew up wanting to _save_ lives but was raised with a knack for _taking_ them.

 

Instead, God blinks at her and asks, “Thirsty?”

 

And all her questions disappear. Thirst. Suddenly that word is the only word in the English language. God appears and disappears before her, as if the lights in an empty room are flipping on and off. Thirst is everything. Death tastes like salt, and the only cure is to drink.

 

Natasha claws at her neck. She can’t open her lips quickly enough, because her neck is _burning_. Parched. It’s screaming with no sound. Her hands search for anything stable, for a rock or an anchor or God himself…

 

Her heard bursts through the surface, and she takes her first breath in five full minutes.


	2. Awakening

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 'An explosion,' she thinks, as her lungs struggle to remember their purpose. 'There was an explosion.'

.

.

.

 

**. III: Awakening .**

* * *

 

  

Life tastes like fire.

 

Natasha gasps, taking humongous gulps of Pacific-baked air. The sunlight pierces holes in her vision, and she blinks rapidly, chest heaving beneath her black wetsuit.

 

Water. Thick, swelling waves of foam and salt, pulling her over and under. She’s in the middle of the ocean. Alive? How …

 

It takes her a moment to get her bearings straight. The oil tanker – it’s roaring with flames, about thirty – no, fifty – yards away from where she floats. Shards of equipment and ruined lifeboats sprinkle the water around her – flotsam that looks sharp enough to impale her if she isn’t careful.

 

Treading through the rolling waves, she finds a long strip of wood to support her weight. She crawls on top of it, her hair dripping onto her palms and her skin prickling with fear.

 

 _An explosion_ , she thinks, as her half-ruined lungs struggle to remember their purpose. _There was an explosion._

That’s right. Of course. She was aboard the tanker to stop an illegal trade? A trade of – she can’t remember. She can’t think straight. But something went wrong, there were too many men and one of them had a bomb, one of them had this crazed look on his face as if … as if death were a privilege, and it was his to take.

 

Natasha coughs suddenly, a bright flare of pain spreading across her back. Strained muscles, probably. Or worse. Maybe burns? She can’t remember if the fire hit her. Did she jump? Was she thrown from the wreckage, tossed by the sheer force of the explosion? Nothing makes sense. Her ears are ringing. Tinnitus.

 

She sits up just enough to scope out her surroundings. If she leans too far to the left, her body protests. _Groaning_ bones.

 

There is nothing. For miles, there is nothing. Just the oil tanker and its ruin, and then water. Blue, blue water. Waves of rolling, foaming water. Water.

 

Water and then

 

water and then

 

water and then

 

water and then

 

water…

 

“Ah. So you _are_ alive.”

 

Natasha whips around, her stomach lurching as her back cries out in protest. There was a sound, and this time it wasn’t God, it was—

 

There’s a woman. She’s inside a half-deflated lifeboat, supported by two wooden beams and a sheet of plastic. It looks almost like a _poncho_. She’s staring at Natasha with a matter-of-fact expression as if to say, “Well, here we are.”

 

“Who are—“

 

Then Natasha notices what the woman is wearing. It’s tattered, dripping saltwater like a wet rag, but still – the stitching is unmistakable. It’s a white and copper uniform of Stark Industries’ design, made to be both flashy and flame retardant. It’s an old model, a little outdated and out-of-style, but nevertheless vintage Tony. A shiny nametag rests at the edge of her collarbone – “Captain Montpelier.”

 

In Natasha’s muddled brain, the connections happen slowly. A Stark Industries uniform? That name – “Montpelier.” A burning oil tanker in the middle of the sea. And this woman. Is she a trader? No, wait – a trafficker.

 

A weapons trafficker.

 

Angelique Montpelier. Suddenly something clicks – and Natasha remembers why she’s bleeding in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. “Angelique Montpelier” (an alias, obviously) is the mastermind behind the trafficking catastrophe of Madagascar in 2010. This woman managed to smuggle bombs into _Wakanda_. She is crafty, resourceful, and practically invisible to any and every foreign intelligence agency.

 

She is also Natasha’s target.

 

“Finally waking up, are you?” Angelique asks, raising an eyebrow. She’s Asian American, from the sound of her accent, with huge brown eyes and tangled black hair. Some of it is stuck to her forehead like a dark strip of fur.

 

Natasha’s fingers keep sidling down her hip, hoping to find a gun, but all her weapons seem to have drowned in the wreckage. Besides, she couldn’t shoot straight anyway – she’s taken some sort of blow to the head. She can’t seem to focus.

 

Angelique doesn’t look fantastic herself – a bright black bruise stretches the length of her jaw, and a clump of dried blood cakes her forehead. Still, she looks almost serene, staring at Natasha with her legs folded beneath her. 

 

“You were the chick sent to kill me, weren’t you? Hmm. Didn’t do a very good job of it.” She glances towards the wreckage, the oil tanker still devoured by flames. “You somehow managed to kill everyone _but_ me.”

 

“I didn’t set off the bomb.” Natasha grimaces.

 

“You didn’t? Hm. A mystery then.” Angelique assesses her nails, which are torn and bleeding. “I doubt the media will care enough to investigate, but hey – if we ever get home, maybe we can call up Sherlock Holmes?”

 

Natasha ignores this. “How … did you survive the blast?”

 

“Same as you. I jumped.”

 

“You’re barely hurt.”

 

“I saw it coming. Plus I was closer to the deck. You had to run.”

 

Natasha is silent; her head is throbbing.

 

“I have to admire you for that,” Angelique adds. She’s floating closer to Natasha now, the wooden boards of their make-shift rafts touching. “Most people would’ve known they were done for. And from the looks of it, you’re close. You’ve got, uh—“ She gestures towards the side of Natasha’s face. “A little something there.”

 

Natasha reaches up absently to wipe a trail of blood from her cheek.

 

“What’s your real name?” Natasha asks.

 

Angelique laughs. “What, you don’t buy ‘Miss Montpelier’?”

 

“No offense.”

 

“None taken. It’s an idiotic name. I was actually forced to take it. I bet you didn’t know that, hmm?” Angelique smiles, but there’s no humor in it.

 

“Then what’s your real one?” Natasha struggles to sit up straight. This is important. A trained felon is five feet in front of her, and clearly in much better condition than herself.

 

“Eleanor. Ellie, please. And yours?”

 

“Natalie.”

 

Angelique – or Ellie – grins. “You little _liar_.”

 

Natasha tenses, once again reaching for the gun that isn’t there.

 

“Oh, come on!” Ellie throws up her hands. “Don’t you think I know better than that? I only asked your name to be polite, and frankly – screw courtesy. If we’re going to be shipwrecked together, we may as well be honest with one another.” She cocks her head to the side, almost _flirtatiously_. “You’re the Slavic Shadow. The Red Death. The ever-elusive Black Widow. It must be confusing having so many names for yourself, hmm? Don’t you heroes ever get sick of advertising?”

 

Natasha smiles back coolly. But Ellie is talking too quickly. Ellie is spinning. Everything is spinning.

 

“I know who you are, Natasha Romanoff. Everyone who’s anyone knows who you are,” Ellie says. But her words sound faint and distorted, like they are shouted from a megaphone miles away.

 

“Everyone knows what the great Black Widow has _done_.”

 

Ellie slips out of existence, her face and features melting like a watercolor painting, until Natasha is left alone in the darkness.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I believe chapters for this fic will be short but numerous. I have some wild plans for this fic, so please let me know your thoughts in the comments!


	3. Confession

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shipwrecked and injured, Natasha must rely on a former target to keep her alive. But strange things are happening to her mind, and taming the Pacific Ocean may be the hardest mission she's ever undertaken. Back on land, her fellow Avengers seek a way to bring her home.

.

.

.

 

**. IV: Confession .**

* * *

 

 

Four, maybe five hours pass in this darkness until another visitor greets Natasha. She’s a little more rational with this one – she knows he’s a hallucination. Still, it’s nice to have friendlier company.

 

“You been to the movies lately?” Steve Rogers is asking. He offers her an M&M from the bag in his hand. She declines.

 

“No. I don’t go often,” she replies.

 

They are alone on the ocean. No Ellie. No wreckage. Natasha is lying across her wooden board, clad in a navy blue bikini and her favorite pair of Ray Bans. Steve sits beside her, flipping through an issue of Entertainment Weekly. Of course, none of this is true, and she is in fact collapsed in the middle of the Pacific Ocean with a dangerous criminal.

 

But it sure is nice to daydream.

 

“Birdman. Huh. That’s an interesting name,” Steve notes. He flips the pages of the magazine, comparing old and new pictures of Michael Keaton.

 

“Sounds too much like Batman,” Natasha replies.

 

“Hey. Nat, you want to watch Birdman?” Steve nudges her knee. “You could come over. I’ll make dinner, buy a bottle of wine. We’ll just hole up at my apartment for the night –“

 

“Steve, quit coming on to me.”

 

He smiles; he knows she’s just teasing him. Still, he drops the subject – none of his attempts to bring her home have done any good.

 

They sit in silence for a while, the wind ruffling Steve’s hair and making him look younger than his 32 years. He looks more like a Gucci model than the leader of a Special Ops team of superheroes. She likes this about him; she _respects_ this about him. Steve does not look the part. He is eternally unexpected. And therefore, he’s about the only person she’ll ever take orders from.

 

The minutes pass slowly, lost summer minutes that slip by like pollen in the breeze. Natasha doesn’t want to talk; Steve clearly does. He sits with his arms resting on his knees, watching the ocean rise and fall; the deep breaths of a sleeping creature.

 

“Natasha.”

 

“Hm?”

 

“I want to know something. And I want you to answer me honestly.”

 

“When have I ever lied to you, Steve?” This is also a joke, but Steve does not laugh. Instead, he waits. Natasha’s humor sits on the air for a moment longer and then dissipates.

 

A hesitation.

 

Finally, he asks what’s on his mind.

 

“Why didn’t you come home? A year ago, after you … lost the baby? You should have come home.”

 

He speaks in a quiet voice, respectful of the weight of his words. But he does not shy away from the question. She loves this about him too.

 

Oh, Steve. Her fearless leader.

 

Enough time passes that Steve opens his mouth to apologize, but Natasha cuts him off.

 

“I’d done too much damage,” she says. “I needed to fix that.”

 

“And by leaving your team, you fixed things?”

 

“Yes.” A pause. She bites the inside of her cheek. “No.”

 

“I’m sorry, Nat, but that doesn’t make any sense.”

 

A wave rises near their feet, tumbling over the wooden board and soaking Steve’s Entertainment Weekly. He ignores it, his eyes on Natasha. He watches her with the intense empathy of a bygone era. People like Steve don’t exist anymore, Natasha’s convinced. The truly extraordinary mothers gave birth to Steve’s generation and then closed up shop.

 

Natasha doesn’t meet his gaze, but watches the horizon shimmer in the distance. “I couldn’t stand to be around Clint,” she says finally.

 

“Because he blamed you?”

 

“No. Because _I_ blamed me.”

 

“And Clint made it worse.”

 

She shrugs, a little lie on her shoulders. “I didn’t just kill my baby. I killed _ours._ ”

 

Steve’s voice takes on a rugged, almost protective quality. “Nat, that’s ridiculous. You didn’t kill your baby. She just … died. It happens, sometimes.”

 

Natasha nods her head, like she’s known this for years, but doesn’t reply.

 

Her hallucination of Steve wavers a bit, like he’s a radio signal about to give out.  A fierce desire to keep him close, to reach out and take him in her arms overwhelms Natasha, but she won’t act on the impulse. She knows that if she touches him, he will melt away like the mirage he is. Instead, she just watches him, watching her. It isn’t romantic. In fact, it’s the simplest thing she’s done in months. 

 

“Are you going to kill this woman?” Steve asks. “Ellie?”

 

“I don’t know,” Natasha says. This time, she’s being honest.

 

“I don’t think you will.”

 

“I might. If it comes to that.”

 

“What makes you think it will?”

 

She smirks. “It’s come to that plenty of times before.”

 

Steve sits back, scrutinizing her. “I trust your judgment. I trust it more than _you_ do.”

 

She wants to tease him. She wants to punch his shoulder and maybe flirt a little. She wants to laugh with him and dance with him and keep him for the rest of eternity, this person whom she _trusts_. This man for whom she would give her life. She smiles a little, thinking, privately, that Steve would have made a fantastic godfather.

 

“Natasha.”

 

“Mm?”

 

“You need to come home. Do you understand?”

 

“It isn’t that easy, Steve.”

 

“Then we’ll _bring_ you home.”

 

The crazy thing? She almost believes him.

Just like that, the mirage breaks. A flash of pain sears through her mind, like the lash of a burning whip. He flickers and fades, his mouth hanging open as if experiencing the same shock. Still, their hands meet in the storm of white noise.

 

And when, a few minutes later, he winks out like a lightbulb, Natasha knows he is not truly far away.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> This story takes place in a semi-AU world where the comics and the cinematic universe align. Please leave any questions, comments, or concerns in the box below. 
> 
> Thank you for reading!


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